Jaelommiss
First Post
You're probably not going to like this answer, but to me letting the enemy have even a single attack is the result of a strategic failure. Play smart and cunning, and be utterly ruthless. If an enemy is able to harm you significantly on a hit, then they could crit and kill you. Don't give them that chance.
Use hit and run tactics, ambush them, poison their food, blind them with ceramic pots of sand that you heated over a fire. Disarm them and throw away their weapon. If they have prepared defenses, find a way around, out wait them (if magical), destroy them, or deceive your way past them. Take time to gather accurate intelligence. Learn their watch rotation. An adventuring party is a high mobility team that can use any crack to shatter defenses if you only take time to find one.
The moment your victory relies on HP attrition you doom yourself to failure. Sooner or later something will have more HP or end up rolling better than you. PCs will be in dozens of battles, and you only need to die once to lose your character (depending on your campaign's rules on Raise Dead).
I'll give you an example. I'm playing in a game where everyone is level 3. Tonight we will be facing a CR 8 downgraded Roc. If we rely on trading blows until it stops moving, we will lose. I've seen its stats, and it'll easily drop each of us in a single turn. So, we need to play smart. We're planning on smearing toxic mushrooms on a cow and leaving it out for the Roc. DM willing, we're then going to use a ballista to launch a harpoon at it and reel it back to the ground. A poisoned, land-bound Roc is significantly easier, and we might even have a chance of defeating it in a straight up fight. But that's not enough. Next we'll net it so that it can't move at all. Then, and only then, will we engage it using ranged attacks. This is still a monstrous bird that could crit any one of us down to instant death so we cannot afford to let it attack even once. Giving it that chance would be a mistake by all reasonable metrics.
In a typical D&D campaign this generally isn't necessary because DMs tend to scale challenges to the party's strength. If, however, you want to seem godlike for your level, then taking a minute to plan the optimal assault plan (time willing) will drastically increase your overall effectiveness.
Edit: I really went off on a tangent there. To relate it back to the OP, going unconscious sucks. It means you are no longer able to choose what you do, and that is generally not enjoyable. Playing smart reduces the chance of going unconscious, and therefore reduces the time spent being unable to choose what you do.
Use hit and run tactics, ambush them, poison their food, blind them with ceramic pots of sand that you heated over a fire. Disarm them and throw away their weapon. If they have prepared defenses, find a way around, out wait them (if magical), destroy them, or deceive your way past them. Take time to gather accurate intelligence. Learn their watch rotation. An adventuring party is a high mobility team that can use any crack to shatter defenses if you only take time to find one.
The moment your victory relies on HP attrition you doom yourself to failure. Sooner or later something will have more HP or end up rolling better than you. PCs will be in dozens of battles, and you only need to die once to lose your character (depending on your campaign's rules on Raise Dead).
I'll give you an example. I'm playing in a game where everyone is level 3. Tonight we will be facing a CR 8 downgraded Roc. If we rely on trading blows until it stops moving, we will lose. I've seen its stats, and it'll easily drop each of us in a single turn. So, we need to play smart. We're planning on smearing toxic mushrooms on a cow and leaving it out for the Roc. DM willing, we're then going to use a ballista to launch a harpoon at it and reel it back to the ground. A poisoned, land-bound Roc is significantly easier, and we might even have a chance of defeating it in a straight up fight. But that's not enough. Next we'll net it so that it can't move at all. Then, and only then, will we engage it using ranged attacks. This is still a monstrous bird that could crit any one of us down to instant death so we cannot afford to let it attack even once. Giving it that chance would be a mistake by all reasonable metrics.
In a typical D&D campaign this generally isn't necessary because DMs tend to scale challenges to the party's strength. If, however, you want to seem godlike for your level, then taking a minute to plan the optimal assault plan (time willing) will drastically increase your overall effectiveness.
Edit: I really went off on a tangent there. To relate it back to the OP, going unconscious sucks. It means you are no longer able to choose what you do, and that is generally not enjoyable. Playing smart reduces the chance of going unconscious, and therefore reduces the time spent being unable to choose what you do.
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